Journal Refereeing

I have refereed several hundred journal articles and
continue to actively referee for many journals. However, I must be
selective in what I can take on and must turn down many requests.

In particular I generally decline to referee papers for journals published
by certain publishers who seem to be charging excessive prices and have
posted extraordinarily high price increases for several years running.

Our university library, like most, is constantly cancelling subscriptions
of many journals out of economic necessity, and has been unable to buy
many books that we should have in our stacks because so much is going
to journals. This has a serious impact on our ability to do research.
It makes no sense to continue to provide free labor to commercial
publishers who make great profits off our research but in turn are
undercutting our ability to continue this work.

If you are an editor for a journal published by a high-priced commercial
publisher, please do not be surprised if I decline to referee. You might
want to reconsider donating your own time and ask whether you are truly
serving the profession by doing so.